Leaves monomorphic or often somewhat dimorphic, 8--25 cm; fertile leaves more erect than sterile leaves, long-petioled, petioles often 2--5 times longer than blades, fertile blades with more ascending pinnae and narrower segments than sterile blades. Blade 3--4-pinnate, 2--10 cm, somewhat leathery. Ultimate segments linear, 3--8 mm; midrib prominent abaxially. Sori of mature blades continuous along length of segments except at apex; indusia linear, margins with 10--35, shallow, regular teeth or erose. 2 n = 60.
Slopes, crevices, rocky outcrops, often on serpentine, sometimes in chaparral; 300--3400 m; B.C., Que.; Calif., Idaho, Mont., Nev., Oreg., Utah, Wash., Wyo.
Lvs clustered on the much-branched rhizome, usually all alike and fertile, the sterile lvs, when present, few and smaller than the fertile and with somewhat smaller, relatively broader, sharply toothed or incised segments; petioles castaneous, 4-18 cm, commonly longer than the blade; fertile blade 2.5-7 cm, a third to fully as wide, often deltoid, tripinnate, the rachis proximally dark like the petiole, distally greenish; pinnae mostly 4-7 offset pairs, the lowest ones the largest; ultimate segments numerous and crowded, ±confluent, linear or elliptic-linear, 3-12 cm × 1-2 mm, tapering to a cartilaginous-mucronate tip; sori set on the indusial flap near its line of junction with the unmodified part of the reflexed margin; 2n=60. Cliff-crevices and moist, rocky slopes; cordilleran region of w. U.S., and locally on serpentine in s. Ont. and Que. (Cryptogramma d.; Pellaea d.; Cheilanthes siliquosa)
Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.
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